At a time when lawyers think little about jumping from firm to firm in search of a bigger paycheck, and unfulfilled lawyers are taking early retirement, the 50-year partnership between Anthony "Nic" Nicholas and Roy Barrera Sr. is a throwback to a different era. In 1957, the two San Antonio lawyers launched their firm on a handshake. A lawyer and longtime friend of the two says Barrera and Nicholas ought to give other lawyers lessons on how to maintain a partnership and a friendship.
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Six Holland & Knight Partners Quit to Launch Boutique Firm
Holland & Knight suffered its first large partner exodus in years when six of its top lawyers announced that they were leaving to start their own firm. The new firm, to be known as Avila Rodriguez Hernandez Mena & Ferri, includes Alcides I. Avila, former head of Holland & Knight's banking and finance group. "We believe that there's a strong market for a small boutique firm that can provide personalized services," Avila said. "We're going to have a lot more flexibility in the type of cases we can handle."
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GCs Offer Lawyers Tips on Wooing Corporations
Four big corporate GCs dished out tips to a hungry crowd at the National Bar Association convention in Atlanta about how to get a slice of their hundreds of millions of dollars in legal spending. Although the easy way is to already have a relationship, there were other suggestions on getting corporate business. Firms that do not have meaningful diversity programs in place need not apply, advised Angela Washington, a division general counsel at Wal-Mart. And cold calling is worthless, according to GM's GC.
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P.I. Lawyer Becomes First to Plead to New Jersey's Anti-Runners Law
Eight years after New Jersey enacted a statute barring lawyers from using paid runners to drum up business, a personal injury lawyer has become the first to plead guilty to the charge. Irwin Seligsohn and his former firm, Seligsohn, Goldberger & Shinrod, pleaded guilty to paying $70,000 to runners between 1998 and 2003 to solicit people to claim injuries from staged or non-existent accidents. The charges were the result of an undercover operation by the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor.
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When to Go VoIP? That Is the Question
Chances are you know someone using VoIP to make cheap long-distance calls. But is VoIP suitable for your law firm? Consultant Edward J. Grubb observes that it's only a matter of time before firms move beyond their traditional phone service.
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[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Friday denied the request of Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Belbacha [BBC profile] to stay his transfer to Algeria [JURIST report]. Belbacha has been cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], but he has
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Exiled tycoon appeals new Russia arrest warrant
[JURIST] Lawyers representing exiled business tycoon Boris Berezovsky [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] filed an appeal Friday against the latest arrest warrant [JURIST report] issued by a Moscow district court on allegations that Berezovsky embezzled $13 million in credit funds [JURIST report]
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Released Bulgaria HIV medics renew accusations of torture in Libya
[JURIST] Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor reiterated allegations Friday that Libyan authorities subjected the six medics to torture during their eight years in Libyan custody on suspicion of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the HIV virus [JURIST news archive].
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Pakistan top court orders government to produce voter registration records
[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] ordered the Pakistani government to produce complete voter registration records Friday after former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto [BBC profile] petitioned that there were up to 30 million missing registrations. Bhutto's lawyer Latif Khosa
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Chinese Tiananmen Square protester released from jail
[JURIST] China has released a prisoner initially sentenced to death for burning debris during the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests [BBC backgrounder], the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy [advocacy website] reported Friday. Former construction worker Xi Haoliang, who
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Tech Shops Journey Toward Green
With energy costs high and environmental conservation making for good public relations, technology companies are touting the ways they are "greening" the data center. But if you view green as a 'destination,' they have a very long way to go
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Time for Mobile Lawyers to Lock and Load
With increased mobility comes the risk of theft or loss of your hardware and, more importantly, the loss of the data that hardware contains. To mitigate these risks, hardware and software manufacturers have come up with multi-pronged approaches to protect data.
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Credit crisis could lead to surge in litigation - Times Online

Unilever laundry sale to start soon; Morgan Stanley running ... - Financial Times

Unilever laundry sale to start soon; Morgan Stanley running ... - Financial Times (subscription)

Godiva books not out; could go to strategic for more than USD 1.5 ... - Financial Times

ST. LOUIS - A jury in federal court has found for Wyeth against a plaintiff alleging the company's diet drug Pondimin caused moderate mitral valve regurgitation (Lisa Dean v. American Home Products, No. 4:02-cv-1833, E.D. Mo., Eastern Div.).
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Massachusetts High Court: Excess Not Bound By Primary's Settlement Decisions

BOSTON - The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Aug. 6 ruled that an excess insurer that issued a "follow form" policy is not bound by the settlement decisions made by a primary insurer (Allmerica Financial Corp. & others v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's, London, No. SJC-09834, Mass. Sup. Jud.; 2007 Mass. Sup. LEXIS 519).
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Jury Awards $23.5 Million In Florida Wrongful Birth Case

Case name: Daniel Estrada, et al. v. University of South Florida Board of Trustees Case number: 06-CA-000625
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Plaintiff Expert Excluded From Testifying On Causation

NEW YORK - The ephedra multidistrict litigation judge on July 13 ruled that a case-specific neurology expert for a plaintiff is excluded from testifying at trial regarding ephedra causation and effects because he relied on incorrect data and his conclusions were unfounded (Harbir Singh v. Herbalife International of America, Inc., No. 06 CV 00014; In Re: Ephedra Products Liability Litigation, 04 MD 1598, S.D. N.Y.).
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[JURIST] Canadian intelligence officials suspected that the United States would deport detained Canadian citizen Maher Arar [advocacy website; CBC timeline] to a country where he could have been subject to torture, according to previously censored information released Thursday by Canada's official
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Son of Libyan leader admits torture of foreign AIDS medics
[JURIST] Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, said Thursday that five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were tortured during their eight years in Libyan custody on suspicion of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the HIV virus [JURIST news
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Six more detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay
[JURIST] Six more detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo Bay [press release], the US Defense Department said Thursday. According to the DOD announcement [press release], five detainees were transferred to Afghanistan and one was transferred to Bahrain [Reuters report; BNA report].
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DOD says 14 'high-value' Guantanamo detainees are 'enemy combatants'
[JURIST] The US Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] said Thursday that 14 "high-value" detainees have been designated as enemy combatants [press release] based on the recommendations of Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) [DOD materials]. The detainees, including the alleged
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Charges dismissed against two US Marines in Haditha Iraqi civilian killings
[JURIST] US Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Mattis [official profile] has dismissed all charges against Lance Cpl. Justine I. Sharratt and Capt. Randy W. Stone for their alleged roles in the killing and suspected cover-up of the death of 24 Iraqi civilians [JURIST report] at Haditha [USMC timeline;
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